Hyrum Smith 1844 Blessing

My transcript from this image, which is a photo of Quincy D. Newell’s book “Your Sister in the Gospel: the Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon” page 140.

May 11th 1818.

Behold I say unto you Jane if you will keep the commandments of god you shall be blessed Spiritualy and Temporaly and shall have a place and a name in the midst of the people of zion even a place and where to lay your Head and you shall have food and Raiment and habitations to dwell in and shall be blessed in in your avocations that is in the labour of your hands and you shall have a knowledge of the Mysteries as god shall reveal them even the Mysteries of his Kingdom manifested in his wisdom unto your capasity according to your accessions in knowledge in obedience to his requisitions you having a promise through the Father of the New World coming down in the lineage of Cainaan the Son of Ham which promise the fullness ther^e of is not yet revealed, the same is sealed up with the sacred records hereafter to be revealed, now therefore I say unto you Jane it is through obedience to the gospel that you are Blessed and it is through a continuation in obedience to the commandments of god even unto the end of your days that you may be saved, shun the path of vice, turn away from wickedness be fervent unto prayer without ceasing and your name shall be handed down to posterity, from generation to generation, therefore let your Heart be comforted for he that changeth times and seasons and placed a mark upon your forehead, can take it off and stamp upon you his own Image, now therefore look and live; and remember the Redemption and the Resurrection of the just and it shall be well with you these Blessings and promises I seal upon your Head; Behold I say unto you Jane if thou doest well thou shalt be accepted, if thou doest not well Sin lieth at the Door, These Blessings and promises I seal upon your Head. Even so Amen.

Given by Hyrum Smith Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ

March 6th 1844.

University of Utah Biography

The Jane Elizabeth Manning James biography page from the Century of Black Mormons collection quotes the original patriarchal blessing given to James by Hyrum Smith:

Manning requested and received a patriarchal blessing from Hyrum Smith in March of 1844. [26] It was and remains customary for a patriarchal blessing to identify the recipient’s lineage, the biblical figure from whom Mormons believed they were spiritually, or sometimes literally, descended. [27] Most Latter-day Saints were identified as members of the tribe of Ephraim, but Hyrum Smith told Manning that she had “a promise through the Father of the New World coming down in the lineage of Cainaan [sic] the Son of Ham.” He also assured Manning that “he that changeth times and seasons and placed a mark upon your forehead, can take it off and stamp upon you his own Image.” In these two phrases, Smith burdened Manning with all of the baggage of contemporary Euro-American racial folklore. By identifying her as descended from Canaan, Smith invoked Noah’s curse that Canaan would be a “servant of servants,” one of the biblical texts white Americans used to justify race-based slavery. [28] And Smith’s discussion of the “mark upon [Manning’s] forehead” referred directly to the story of Cain, the biblical first murderer, whose “mark” Euro-Americans believed was passed down in the form of the dark skin of African-descended people. [29]

Perry’s “Race and the Making of the Mormon People”

From Max Perry Mueller’s book “Race and the Making of the Mormon People” pg 148

…

And yet in Jane Manning’s patriarchal blessing, Hyrum Smith indicates that all is not lost. Like the potential redemption of the Native American descendants of the Lamanites, whose cursed dark skin could be made “white and delightsome” through faith and piety, Hyrum Smith comforts Jane Manning, “for he that changeth times and seasons and placed a mark upon your forehead, can take it off and stamp upon you his own linage.”[116] In Nauvoo, the church’s prophet offered Jane Manning the chance to be adopted into his family. And the church’s patriarch told Manning that she could part ways with her inherited identity as a daughter of Canaan, Ham, and Cain. She, too, could join the blessed lineage of Heavenly Father’s chosen people.

Yet such a change was conditional on Jane Manning’s decision to properly exercise her agency. In the conclusion of the blessing, Hyrum Smith establishes a pathway toward this alternative lineage by offering Manning avery tailored, racially specific covenantal contract: “Behold I say unto you jane if thou doest well thou shalt be accepted; if thou doest not well Sin lieth at the Door.” The import of Hyrum’s choice of words here cannot be overstated. Hyrum cites word for word Moses 5:23, which is his brother Joseph’s translation and slight alteration of Genesis 4:7.[117] In the Bible and in the book of Moses, this passage is part of the conversation between God and Cain that comes directly before Cain rises up against his brother and slays him.”

…

Footnote 116. See Daniel 2;21, “And he changeth the times and the seasons; he removeth kings, and setteth up kings; he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding”; Smith, A Patriarchal Blessing of Jane Manning, CHL.

Footnote 117. Genesis 4:7 reads: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou does not well, sin lieth at the door.” In Moses 5:23, Joseph changes the rhetorical question found in the KJV of Genesis to a definitive period.

For reference, Moses 5:22–23:

22 And the Lord said unto Cain: Why art thou wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen?

23 If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted. And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and Satan desireth to have thee; and except thou shalt hearken unto my commandments, I will deliver thee up, and it shall be unto thee according to his desire. And thou shalt rule over him;

See also

James’s second patriarchal blessing, from Patriarch John Smith in 1889